Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

The lawyer and businessman who tried to take on the criminal gang

The Times

Sergei Magnitsky, 37, was a lawyer for the US firm Firestone Duncan and represented the London-based hedge fund Hermitage Capital. Hermitage’s founder Bill Browder was once Russia’s biggest foreign investor until he was banned from the country on national security grounds in 2005.

Mr Magnitsky testified against a group of Interior Ministry police officers that he had accused of fraudulently reclaiming $230 million (£144 million) in state taxes paid by Hermitage companies in 2008. He alleged that they had raided the law firm to seize documents relating to the companies, and had then changed the ownership to carry out the largest tax fraud in Russian history.

The same police arrested him a month later and accused him of tax evasion. He complained of repeated torture and beatings to try to force him to withdraw his testimony, while family members were barred from visiting him.

Mr Magnitsky was denied medical treatment for his illnesses and died in pre-trial detention shortly after being beaten in his cell by a group of eight guards as an ambulance waited for more than an hour outside the prison in November 2009.